The United Kingdom’s House of Commons has approved a bill to establish a national ID card system. The Identity Cards Bill sets out a system under which each citizen would have a compulsory ID card embedded with a computer chip by 2012. The chip will hold personal information such as names and addresses as well as a biometric identifier such as a facial scan or iris scan. All of this information will also be stored in a national database. The bill had little problem passing in the House of Commons with a vote of 224 to 64. However, it faces a greater challenge in the House of Lords, according to public comments from its sponsor, Secretary of State for the Home Department Charles Clark.@ The full text of the bill is available at Security Management Online.